Geophys. J. Int. (2010) 181, 275–289 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2010.04537.

GJI Geomagnetism, rock magnetism and palaeomagnetism

Rock magnetic evidence for inclination shallowing in the early
Carboniferous Deer Lake Group red beds of western Newfoundland

Dario Bilardello∗ and Kenneth P. Kodama

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lehigh University, 31 Williams Dr., Bethlehem, PA, USA. E-mail: bilardello@geophysik.uni-muenchen.de

Accepted 2010 January 20. Received 2010 January 19; in original form 2008 July 4

SUMMARY
A paleomagnetic and rock magnetic study of the Carboniferous Deer Lake Group red beds of
Newfoundland was performed to detect and correct for inclination shallowing. Results indicate
a primary remanence carried by magnetite, with a mean direction of D = 179.7◦ , I = 33.7◦ ,
α 95 = 7.2◦ which corresponds to a paleopole position of 22.2◦ N, 122.3◦ E, A95 = 7.6◦ . Correct-
ing the inclination using anisotropy of anhysteretic remanence and the measured individual
particle anisotropy gives a corrected direction of D = 178.8◦ , I = 50.9◦ , α 95 = 6.3◦ cor-
responding to a paleopole position at 8.4◦ N, 122.7◦ E, A95 = 7.2◦ . This correction is larger
than that of other red beds from the Maritime Provinces of Canada, but is consistent with
paleoenvironmental reconstructions, placing North America in a more arid climate zone. Our
inclination-corrected results have important implications for this portion of North America’s
apparent polar wander path and suggest a correction is needed for other red bed-derived
APWPs. We have determined the range of flattening factors f , defined as the proportional-
ity constant between the tangents of the measured (I m ) and field (I o ) inclinations, tan(I m ) =
f tan(I 0 ), from this study and previous inclination correction studies to estimate inclination cor-
rections. Using the range of haematite f factors observed in this study to correct the Neogene
red bed inclinations from the Vallès-Penedès Basin (NE Spain) yields inclinations consistent
with the known geomagnetic field inclination in the Neogene, thus indicating that the range
of f factors reported here may be used to estimate the magnitude of inclination shallowing in
red beds.
Key words: Magnetic fabrics and anisotropy; Magnetic mineralogy and petrology; Palaeo-
magnetism applied to tectonics; Palaeomagnetism applied to geologic processes; Rock and
mineral magnetism.

1 I N T RO D U C T I O N
The stable remanence of red beds has long been studied by paleo-
magnetists because of red beds’ frequent occurrence in continental
sedimentary records. The apparent polar wander paths (APWPs)
of some continents, for instance, such as the Meso-Paleozoic por-
tion of North America’s APWP, are dominated by red bed-derived
paleopoles (Van der Voo 1990; McElhinny & Lock 1993, 1996).
The mechanism by which red beds acquire their remanence, and
therefore the accuracy with which red beds record paleomagnetic di-
rections, is poorly understood (Collinson 1965; Dunlop & Özdemir
1997). The most common view is that the remanence is carried by
haematite of chemical origin, in which case the remanence will be a
chemical remanent magnetization (CRM) that was acquired either
soon after or up to millions of years after deposition (Collinson
1974; Dunlop & Özdemir 1997). The timing of the acquisition of
the remanence is a fundamental parameter in the interpretation of a
∗
Now at: Ludwig Maximilians University, Theresienstrasse, 41, 80333
Munich, Germany.
paleomagnetic study (Roy & Park 1972; Walker et al. 1981; Larson
et al. 1982; Liebes & Shive 1982).
In some cases, the remanence is carried by detrital haematite,
making the remanence a primary detrital remanent magnetization
(DRM) (Collinson 1974; Elston & Purucker 1979; Steiner 1983;
Tauxe et al. 1990; Tan & Kodama 2002; Tan et al. 2007; Bilardello
2008; Bilardello & Kodama 2009). In many red beds, however,
different magnetic mineralogies often coexist and different combi-
nations of primary and secondary mineralogies can occur, making
paleomagnetic studies of red beds case specific. For instance, pig-
mentary haematite is typically present in red beds, giving them
their characteristic red colouration, and is secondary in origin
(Dunlop & Özdemir 1997; McElhinny & McFadden 1999; Kodama
& Dekkers 2004). Other red beds may have a primary remanence
carried by magnetite or maghemite, with pigmentary haematite (and
other mineralogies) present as secondary phases (see Dunlop &
Özdemir 1997). For any of the earlier cases, the primary remanence
may be affected by depositional and/or post-depositional processes.
Burial compaction, which can shallow the inclination of the mag-
netization, is the focus of this paper (Anson & Kodama 1987; Sun


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276 D. Bilardello and K. P. Kodama
& Kodama 1992). Shallowing of the paleomagnetic inclination is
well-documented in red beds (Garcés et al. 1996; Gilder et al. 2001;
Tan & Kodama 2002, 2003; Tauxe & Kent 2004; Kent & Tauxe
2005; Vaughn et al. 2005; Tan et al. 2007). Inclinations that are
too shallow result in erroneous paleolatitude estimates and strongly
affect the APWPs of continents, hence the need to correct for this
error (Garcés et al. 1996; Gilder et al. 2001; Tan & Kodama 2003;
Vaughn et al. 2005; Tan et al. 2007).
Two inclination shallowing correction techniques have been pro-
posed. One is based on magnetic anisotropy measurements (Jackson
et al. 1991; Kodama 1997; Tan & Kodama 2002, 2003; Vaughn
et al. 2005; Tan et al. 2007), the other is based on models of the
geomagnetic field secular variation [the elongation–inclination (EI)
technique] (Tauxe & Kent 2004; Kent & Tauxe 2005). Anisotropy-
based corrections rely on the assumption that the orientation distri-
bution of magnetic particle easy axes in sedimentary rocks is nearly
isotropic soon after deposition and acquires a bedding parallel foli-
ated anisotropy during burial compaction (Stephenson et al. 1986;
Jackson et al. 1991; Tan & Kodama 2003). The magnetic fabric,
together with the individual particle anisotropy is used to correct
the inclination (Jackson et al. 1991; Tan & Kodama 2002, 2003;
Tan et al. 2003). Corrections that are based on models of the geo-
magnetic field, on the other hand, rely on the expected distribution
of paleomagnetic directions caused by secular variation. During a
period long enough to observe secular variation (∼103 years), pale-
omagnetic directions will be elongated in a N–S direction, with the
amount of elongation depending on the sampling site’s initial pale-
olatitude, with the maximum elongation occurring at the equator.
Shallowed inclinations, however, will result in flattened distribu-
tions that are elongate in an E–W direction. Tauxe & Kent (2004)
have developed a correction technique that relies on models of the
geomagnetic field to restore the elongation and inclination of the
distribution.
In this paper, we perform a paleomagnetic and rock magnetic
study of the early Carboniferous Deer Lake Group red beds from
Newfoundland to detect and correct for inclination shallowing. Re-
sults are compared to other Carboniferous red bed-derived pale-
opoles from the Maritime Provinces of Canada that have been cor-
rected for inclination shallowing (Bilardello 2008; Bilardello &
Kodama 2010). The effects of the corrections on the Carbonifer-
ous APWP for North America are evaluated in terms of the pale-
oenvironmental reconstructions of the rocks sampled. Finally, we
determine the relationship between corrected inclinations and the
amount of shallowing for all available inclination-corrected results.
We check the validity of this relationship by applying a simplified
correction to the Neogene Vallès-Penedès Basin (NE Spain) red
beds.
2 GEOLOGY
The Early Carboniferous Deer Lake Group is part of the fresh water
sedimentary rocks that fill the Deer Lake Basin and rest on Pre-
cambrian (Grenville Structural Province of the Canadian Shield)
basement gneisses. The deposits of the Deer Lake Basin have been
subdivided by Hyde (1984) into the Tournaisian Anguille Group,
the Wigwam Brook and Wetstone Point Formations, the uncon-
formably overlying predominantly Visean Deer Lake Group and
the Westphalian Howley Group (Fig. 1).
The four units of the Deer Lake Group are well exposed and are
best suited for a paleomagnetic study. All four units were sampled
for this study. The lowermost unit, the North Brook Formation is
an over 2000-m-thick fluvial and alluvial fan deposit (Belt 1969;
Hyde 1979), composed of mainly red to grey arkosic sandstone and
conglomerate, with minor red to grey siltstone and pink to grey mi-
critic limestone. The Rocky Brook Formation lies conformably on
top of the North Brook, and its lowermost layers intertongue with
facies equivalent to the North Brook Formation. It is typically 500-
to 600-m thick and consists of red calcareous silts, grey to green
siltstones and mudstones, calcareous dolostones, dolomitic lime-
stones, and grey, green and black mudstones. The unit is interpreted
by Hyde (1984) to be mixed lacustrine and fluvial deposits. The
Humber Falls Formation rests disconformably on top of the Rocky
Brook Formation and has a maximum thickness of 250 m. It has
been interpreted by Belt (1969) and Hyde (1979) to be an alluvial
fan-fluvial deposit composed of grey to reddish conglomerate and
arkosic sandstones and red to grey siltstones and mudstones. The
Little Pond Brook Formation reaches a thickness of 750 m and is
considered to be the fluvial (Hyde & Ware 1981) lateral equivalent
of the Humber Falls Formation. It is composed of grey to red clas-
tics and grey coarse-grained sandstone and pebble conglomerate
interbedded with red fine-grained sandstone and siltstone. Spore
assemblages in the Deer Lake Group suggest a Visean to possibly
early Namurian age (Hyde 1984).
Two northeast-trending synclines separated by an intervening
anticline deform the Deer Lake Group, the Humber syncline in the
west and the Grand Lake syncline in the east. Bedding attitudes vary
from sub-horizontal to overturned. It has been suggested by Hyde
(1979) that folding of the Deer Lake Group was the result of dip-slip
movement along major northeasterly trending faults. These faults
controlled the overall form and sedimentation of the basin and may
have been active, with strike-slip movement along them, during the
deposition and deformation of the older Anguille Group.
3 SAMPLING AND METHODS
As Irving & Strong (1984) have pointed out, access is difficult and
exposures are few and often weathered. Sampling was performed
using the collection sites of Irving & Strong (1984) as guidance,
however many sites are along stream beds and the water level was
still too high for sampling during both field seasons of June and
August of 2004. Nevertheless, 18 sites were sampled from all four
units of the Deer Lake Group, mostly along lakeshores over a strati-
graphic thickness of about 2000 m (Fig. 1). Many sites were not
ideal: they were either too weathered or coarse-grained, which made
drilling very difficult and resulted in many cores breaking. As a re-
sult, many short cores were collected, so sampling sites ranged from
∼8 to ∼15 cores that yielded one to three samples each. Cores were
collected with a gasoline-powered 25-mm-diameter diamond coring
drill and oriented using a magnetic compass.
The magnetic mineralogy of the Deer Lake group rocks was in-
vestigated by a variety of techniques. IRM acquisition experiments
in fields up to 5 T applied with an ASC Scientific impulse magne-
tizer were used to identify the major coercivity components. IRM
acquisition modelling was conducted (Kruiver et al. 2001). Thermal
demagnetization of composite IRMs of 0.1, 0.3 and 1.2 T was per-
formed using an ASC TD-48 thermal demagnetizer. These exper-
iments were used to identify magnetic mineralogy (Lowrie 1990).
Magnetic remanence was measured with a 2G Enterprises supercon-
ducting magnetometer at Lehigh University. Low-temperature mag-
netic properties were measured with a Quantum Designs MPMS
cryogenic susceptometer at the Institute for Rock Magnetism, Uni-
versity of Minnesota. Specimens were cooled down to 20 K in zero

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Figure 1. Location map of the Deer Lake Group of Newfoundland. Sampling sites are shown as circles on the map modified after Irving & Strong (1984). For
a colour version of the figure, the reader is referred to the online version of this paper.
field and the remanence was measured on heating to 300 K and
on cooling back to 20 K. First-order reversal curves (FORCs) were
measured with a variable temperature Princeton Measurements Cor-
poration vibrating sample magnetometer at the Institute for Rock
Magnetism and processed using Winklhofer & Zimanyi’s (2006)
MATLAB code.
Thermal demagnetization was conducted in the thermal demag-
netizer using 16 steps between 200 and 685 ◦ C to identify the
characteristic remanence of the rocks. Chemical demagnetization
was conducted by leaching the samples in 3N HCl using 4-day
leaching steps up to a cumulative 12 days and then 7-day steps
up to a cumulative 40 days. AF demagnetization was conducted
on representative samples in steps of 5 mT up to 50 mT and then
10 mT steps up to 100 mT.
Determining the remanence anisotropy of the characteristic
remanence-carrying grains involved several steps. First, the coerciv-
ity spectra of the ferromagnetic grains was determined from partial
anhysteretic remanence magnetization (pARM) using a Schonstedt
GSD-5 tumbling specimen demagnetizer modified to apply pARMs.
pARM acquisition curves were acquired in 10 mT intervals between
0 and 100 mT to determine the median coercivity window. Second,
the magnetic fabric of these grains was measured by anisotropy
of anhysteretic remanence (AAR) in a 10–70 mT coercivity win-
dow, with a 0.1 mT dc field. AAR was determined following the
method described by McCabe et al. (1985): pARMs were applied
in nine different orientations separated by 100 mT alternating field

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Rock magnetism and inclination shallowing 277
demagnetization steps. The nine pARMs were used to determine
the best-fit anisotropy tensor by least squares. Finally, the individ-
ual particle anisotropy, or a factor, was measured directly following
several steps. First, the samples were crushed, ball milled and fi-
nally sieved to ensure that the rock particles are smaller than 4 
(62.5 μm). Then, a slurry was made with the resulting crushed rock
and distilled water which was then placed in an ultrasonic cleaner for
at least 24 hr before circulating it in a magnetic extraction apparatus
(Hounslow & Maher 1999). The magnetic separate was collected
over a period of 2–3 weeks. Small amounts of the magnetic separates
were mixed in a slow-drying epoxy resin for 24 hr and placed in a
dc magnetic field (45 and 55 mT) to align the grains. Because the
grains are aligned, the bulk AAR anisotropy of the epoxy samples
provides an average individual particle anisotropy.
ChRMs were corrected for inclination shallowing using the rela-
tionship between magnetite anisotropy principal axes and inclina-
tion error described by Jackson et al. (1991):
qx (a + 2) − 1
tan(I0 ) = tan(Im ), (1)
qz (a + 2) − 1
where I 0 is the corrected paleomagnetic inclination; I m is the mea-
sured paleomagnetic inclination; qx and qz are the normalized max-
imum and minimum axes of the magnetic anisotropy ellipsoid
(qx + qy + qz = 1); a is the individual particle anisotropy (the
a factor = easy magnetic axis/hard magnetic axis). An inclination
correction may use either AMS or AAR parameters (both anisotropy
278 D. Bilardello and K. P. Kodama
principal axes and particle anisotropy), because the magnitudes of
the corresponding normalized principal axes are linearly correlated
(Stephenson et al. 1986; Tan & Kodama 2002, 2003; Tan et al.
2003). Inclinations have been corrected using the measured a factor
and the measured anisotropy principal axes.
4 R E S U LT S
4.1 Magnetic mineralogy
Thermal demagnetization of orthogonal IRMs of 0.1, 0.3 and 1.2
T (Lowrie 1990) reveals the presence of at least three components
of magnetization (Fig. 2). The 1.2 T demagnetization curve shows
a drop around 680 ◦ C. Typically this drop is small as in samples
NF11e2 and NF15e3, but for some samples, as in sample NF8e2 it
is the most prominent feature. In some cases, as for example sample
NF8e2, it also shows a distinct decrease of intensity between 350
and 450 ◦ C. The intermediate (0.3 T) demagnetization curve has
different behaviour in different samples: in some cases it shows a
distinct drop at 580 ◦ C after which it is mostly removed, as in sample
NF11e2, but in others it persists up to 680 ◦ C, as in samples NF8e2
and NF15e3, a slight decrease around 400–450 ◦ C is also observed.
The 0.1 T curve consistently shows a decrease at 350 ◦ C and then
drops sharply at 580 ◦ C. Upon reapplication of IRMs in the same
fields, but after complete thermal demagnetization, the intensities
of all IRMs show a decrease with respect to their initial intensity.
IRM acquisition modelling of specimens NF15e-1 and NF8e-1
revealed three major coercivity components. The lowest component
is acquired between 60 and 80 mT. An intermediate component
peaks at 500 mT, whereas the highest component peaks around
2000 mT (Fig. 3).
The low-temperature measurements of specimen NF11j-1 clearly
show an initial loss of intensity when heating from 20 to 50 K and
then a second abrupt drop at around 119 K. The cooling curve only
Figure 2. Thermal demagnetization of three orthogonal IRMs of 1.2 T (diamonds), 0.3 T (squares) and 0.1 T (triangles) (Lowrie 1990) for specimens NF8e2,
NF11e2 and NF15e3. Filled symbols are re-applications of the IRMs at the end of the heating cycle (specimens NF8E2 and NF11E2). Loss of intensity on
re-application of the IRMs indicates the presence of maghemite. Losses of intensity in the 350–450 ◦ C range is indicative of maghemite whereas drops of
intensity at 580 and 680 ◦ C indicate magnetite and haematite, respectively.
clearly shows the 119 K transition, although not as abruptly. Both
transitions are best observed when plotting the derivatives of the
two curves (Fig. 4).
Hysteresis loops were acquired in fields of 1.2 T to capture a
broad spectrum of coercivities (Fig. 5a), however, the FORC dia-
gram of specimen NF11j-2, that has representative behaviour, shows
the magnetic mineralogy being dominated by one low (<100 mT)
coercivity phase or group of phases (Fig. 5b).
4.2 Paleomagnetism
Thermal demagnetization of the Deer Lake Group rocks revealed
different components of magnetization that are completely removed
by demagnetization up to 600–625 ◦ C. The lowest unblocking tem-
perature component, denoted the A component, is completely re-
moved by 200 ◦ C, but it is not possible to fully resolve it with our
demagnetization scheme (Fig. 6).
An intermediate unblocking temperature component of magne-
tization, denoted B, is sometimes observed between 200 and 300–
400 ◦ C (Fig. 6d). Although this component is not fully resolved
and only defined by three demagnetization steps, it is southerly
directed with positive inclinations (reverse polarity). The highest
unblocking temperature component of magnetization, component
C, is observed above 300–400 ◦ C and is completely removed by
600–625 ◦ C. This component has a northerly direction and negative
inclination (normal polarity) (Figs 6b and d). A few samples, how-
ever, revealed an antipodal direction of component C that trends
towards the origin starting at 200 ◦ C and is completely removed by
600–625 ◦ C. This component is always southerly directed and has
a positive inclination (Figs 6a and e). Complete demagnetization
up to 685 ◦ C was performed on all samples, however no stable di-
rection has been isolated above 600–625 ◦ C (Figs 6c and f). The
Deer Lake Group mean direction for this high unblocking temper-
ature component of magnetization in stratigraphic coordinates is

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 Rock magnetism and inclination shallowing 279

Figure 3. Modelling of IRM acquisition curves (Kruiver et al. 2001) for samples NF15e-1 and NF8e-1. The three peaks are in the coercivity ranges of
magnetite (low), haematite (intermediate) and goethite (high).

Figure 4. Low-temperature magnetization measurements for specimen NF11j-1 during heating from 20 to 300 K and cooling from 300 to 20 K all in zero
field. The inset shows the derivatives of the two curves to highlight magnetization transitions. The initial loss of intensity at <50 K during heating is attributed
to goethite. The Verwey transition, characteristic of magnetite is clearly visible around 119 K.

D = 179.3◦ , I = 30.5◦ , α 95 = 19.7◦ , N = 8. Chemical demagneti-
zation was not successful at isolating stable components of magne-
tization (Fig. 6g), so these results will not be treated.
For a few selected samples, AF demagnetization up to 50–60
mT isolated the same components of magnetization as thermal de-
magnetization (Fig. 6h). AF demagnetization up to 100 mT did not
isolate a stable magnetization at higher fields (Fig. 6i). When the
site mean directions from thermal demagnetization (Table 1) are
plotted on a stereographic projection there is much scatter (Fig.
7a). Fold tests performed on these directions gave ambiguous re-
sults (Tauxe & Watson 1994), because the 95 per cent confidence
interval for the fold test is extremely large, ranging from −58 to
151 per cent untilting. However, when the formation mean direc-
tion is plotted with its confidence ellipse together with the formation
mean direction isolated by Irving & Strong (1984), the two direc-
tions are statistically indistinguishable (Fig. 7b). The directions iso-
lated by Irving & Strong (1984) (Table 1) proved to be pre-folding
directions of magnetization. We have combined our site mean di-
rections with those of Irving & Strong (1984) and together, the site
means pass the Tauxe & Watson (1994) and the McFadden & Jones
(1981) fold tests, although with a large 95 per cent confidence
interval (Fig. 8). The mean formation direction in stratigraphic


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280 D. Bilardello and K. P. Kodama
Figure 5. FORC diagram obtained for specimen NF11j-2 using the code of Winklhofer & Zimanyi (2006). This sample was chosen because samples from
this site show typical thermal demagnetization behaviour. (a) Raw data and (b) FORC diagram (smoothing factor = 5) shows one main coercivity distribution
that is <100 mT dominating the magnetization. For a colour version of the figure, the reader is referred to the online version of this article.
coordinates obtained by combining our data (N = 8) with that of
Irving & Strong (1984) (N = 21) is D = 179.7◦ , I = 33.7◦ , α 95 =
7.2◦ . This direction has been used for our inclination correction.
4.3 Magnetic Fabrics
AAR was used to measure the magnetic fabrics. To determine the
coercivity range to apply the ARMs, we applied pARMs between
0 and 100 mT in intervals of 10 mT. The highest activation of
magnetic grains, indicated by a peak in the pARM spectrum, oc-
curred between 10 and 70 mT. We therefore measured the AAR
in this coercivity range. Because the ChRM is demagnetized over
the same AF interval (15–50/60 mT), the AAR is applied to the
ChRM-carrying grains. The magnetic remanence fabric in strati-
graphic coordinates (Fig. 9a) has a sub-bedding parallel foliation
with very steep minimum axes plunging to the NW. The maximum
and intermediate axes show good clustering at shallow inclina-
tions. The maximum axes define a strong magnetic lineation that
plunges gently to the SSW, whereas the intermediate axes plunge
to the ESE. Orientation of the mean eigenvectors of the fabric
are better appreciated after re-sampling the data using the boot-
strap technique of Constable & Tauxe (1990) (Fig. 9b). Plotted on
a Flinn diagram (Flinn 1962) (Fig. 9c) and as histograms of the
eigenvalues (Fig. 9f), the fabric appears triaxial tending towards
oblate.
In geographic coordinates (Fig. 9d, e), the clustering of all princi-
pal axes is less well defined. The minimum axes plunge towards the
SW at intermediate angles, whereas the maximum and intermediate
axes are scattered along a great circle oriented NW–SE and gently
dipping to the NE.
4.4 Individual particle anisotropy (a factor)
Because Blow & Hamilton (1978) found a dependence of inclination
shallowing on porosity, DRM research has focused on the attach-
ment of magnetic particles to clays during DRM acquisition and the
effect of the attachment on inclination shallowing (e.g. Scherbakov
and Scherbakova 1983; Anson & Kodama 1987; Deamer and
Kodama, 1990; Jackson et al. 1991; Mitra & Tauxe 2009). Flocs are
thought to be formed by magnetic particles embedded in clay miner-
als, which are in turn arranged in a hierarchical, fractal nature (Mitra
& Tauxe 2009 and references therein). However, the true structure
and, most importantly, the orientation of individual magnetic parti-
cles within the flocs is unknown. This raises an important question
when considering particle anisotropy for inclination shallowing be-
cause it carries the implication that the magnetic anisotropy of the
flocs could be more important than that of the particles embedded
in them. However, the misalignment of magnetic grain easy axes
in a floc, as well as the misalignment of mean floc “easy axes” is
measured as the overall preferred alignment of magnetic particles
by the bulk rock anisotropy and the individual magnetic particle
anisotropy, as measured by the a factor, is still the basic “quantum”
of magnetic anisotropy in the rock.
Two samples of magnetic separates have been prepared, mixed
in epoxy, and dried in dc magnetic fields of 45 and 55 mT.
AAR of the sample dried in a 55 mT field had an anisotropy of
204 per cent (Rees 1966) and an RMS error of 3.4 per cent.
The a factor measured from this fabric is 5.39. This high value
is inconsistent with previous measurements of magnetite a factors
(Kodama 1997; Tan & Kodama 1998; Kodama 2009) and may be
due to clumping of the magnetic particles in the epoxy sample.

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 Rock magnetism and inclination shallowing 281

Figure 6. Orthogonal vector endpoint diagrams for thermal demagnetization (Zijderveld 1967). The ChRM was typically isolated between 200 and 600–
625 ◦ C. (a) and (e) show reverse polarity (south and down) components, whereas (b) and (d) show normal polarity (north and up) ChRM components; (g)
shows the unstable behaviour of a chemically demagnetized sample, which is directly comparable to the behaviour observed in (d). The sample in (d) also
reveals a poorly constrained lower unblocking temperature component that is antipodal to the ChRM and can be observed on the equal area projection between
200 and 400 ◦ C, solid (open) circles are lower (upper) hemisphere projections. (h) Shows a result from AF demagnetization which is directly comparable to
(e). To indicate that complete demagnetization was performed, but did not isolate a stable remanence above 600–625 ◦ C or 50–60 mT, in (c) and (f) complete
demagnetization is shown up to 685 ◦ C of the same samples as in (b) and (e), where in (i) demagnetization up to 100 mT of the same sample as in (h) is shown.
For all diagrams, solid (open) symbols are projections onto the horizontal (vertical) plane.

Confirmation of this interpretation is the observation that the ARM
directions measured often diverged from the directions of the field
used to impart the ARM, indicating strong magnetic interactions
between the grains. We doubt the divergence of the imparted ARMs
and the measured remanence is to be attributed to a gyroremanent
magnetization effect (GRM) because this would result in remanent
directions in an orthogonal plane to the ARMs imparted (Dunlop &
Özdemir 1997), whereas the measured remanence for all the nine
measurement positions used to calculate the anisotropy are subpar-
allel to the orientation of the dc setting field. In contrast, the sample


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282 D. Bilardello and K. P. Kodama

Table 1. Site mean directions isolated through thermal demagnetization. Sites nf1–15 are from this study,
sites 06–85 are from Irving & Strong (1984) with the family of magnetization indicated, in situ declinations
and inclinations are calculated from the reported directions in stratigraphic coordinates and bedding attitude,
R and α 95 (sites 22, 24, 67, 70, 71, 75) are calculated from the reported N and k.
Deer Lake Group ChRMs thermal demagnetization
Site In situ D In situ I Strike Dip Strat D Strat I N R k α 95
nf1 160.7 5.9 347 30 158.6 1.9 5 4.9705 135.7 6.6
nf8 71.3 5.2 32 90 38.8 −39.1 5 4.8025 20.3 17.4
nf9 167.5 8.2 319 38 157.1 23.8 5 4.9024 41 12.1
nf10 191.6 21.5 327 39 169.7 44.1 5 4.9514 82.3 8.5
nf11 358.1 −9.7 310 35 347.5 −34 4 3.928 41.7 14.4
nf12 2.8 6.3 302 41 358.3 −29.1 4 3.4862 5.8 41.6
nf13 46.8 −13.7 285 23 52.5 −33 5 3.6377 2.9 54.4
nf15 170.8 18.9 39 5 169.3 17.7 4 3.9668 90.4 9.7
Mean 189 9.5 – – 179.3 30.5 8 7.2111 8.9 19.7
06 S (N) 175 23.6 290 15 171 37 8 7.8542 48 8
09 S 166 15 210 30 177 34 8 7.6667 21 13
09 N 5.2 −13.5 210 30 195 24 1 – – –
09 N + S 168 14.8 210 30 179 33 9 8.6190 21 12
13 N 339.9 −32.4 150 20 171 27 1 – – –
22 S 198.3 8.3 280 27 200 35 2 1.9873 79 11.2
22 N 34.1 −9.7 280 27 219 34 2 1.9655 29 18.5
22 N + S 205.7 9.2 280 27 209 35 4 3.9167 36 16.0
24 S 170.7 29.2 225 30 189 51 2 1.9412 17 24.4
67 N (S) 65.8 −4.2 24 95 194 41 23 22.6857 70 4.0
70 N 4.9 −26.5 216 46 216 40 2 1.9091 11 30.6
71 S 156.6 28.2 170 25 171 31 1 – – –
71 N 326.9 −28.1 170 25 162 35 4 3.9667 90 10.0
71 N + S 330.8 −28.8 170 25 166 34 5 4.9437 71 9.0
75 S 159 26.3 303 26 144 39 3 2.9259 27 15.8
75 N 19.3 1.2 303 26 198 24 5 4.9111 45 12
75 N + S 185.9 9.3 303 26 181 32 8 7.1250 8 20
76 S (N) 171.7 14.2 280 22 165 28 6 5.7826 23 14
80 N 334.1 −34.8 53 11 153 24 1 – – –
82 S 146.7 26.8 45 8 146 19 1 – – –
85 S 178.3 −5.4 250 45 183 37 10 9.9692 292 3
Mean 181 16.9 – – 179.7 33.7 29 27.1047 14.8 7.2

Figure 7. (a) Site mean directions in stratigraphic coordinates isolated through thermal demagnetization (all rotated to reverse polarity). (b) Comparison of
means between the formation mean from this study (solid circle) and the formation mean from Irving & Strong (1984) (solid square).

dried in a 45 mT field shows an anisotropy of 84 per cent with an
RMS error of 1.7 and an a factor of 1.99. This a factor value is
consistent with previous observations for magnetite (e.g. Vaughn
et al. 2005). In addition, ARM directions are closer to the applied
field directions. The choice of a particle anisotropy of two was also
confirmed by evaluating the symmetry of corrected site mean VGPs
using the Bingham distribution (Bingham 1964) to analyse ellip-
tically distributed data (Beck 1999). VGPs were re-sampled using
the bootstrap technique of Constable & Tauxe (1990) to increase
the sample number. Results from inclination corrections performed
using a range of a factors (Bilardello 2008) indicate that the most
symmetric and therefore geologically realistic distribution of site
mean VGPs lies between a factors of 1.4 and 2.2.
Corrections performed using this range of a also agree, within
error, to an inclination correction performed using the EI tech-
nique of Tauxe & Kent (2004) discussed earlier. This technique


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Figure 8. Fold test performed on data from this study and Irving & Strong (1984) combined.
converts symmetric VGPs to directions, which is essentially similar
to evaluating the symmetry of corrected VGPs to determine particle
anisotropy.
4.5 Inclination correction
The uncorrected paleopole of the Deer Lake Group lies at 22.2◦ N,
122.3◦ E, A95 = 7.6◦ . When an inclination correction is applied using
an a factor of 2 and the measured AAR fabric, the mean direction
of the Deer Lake Group is corrected to D = 178.8◦ , I = 50.9◦ ,
α 95 = 6.3◦ , N = 29, indicating an inclination shallowing of 17.2◦
(remanent inclination measured, I = 33.7◦ ). When this direction is
converted to a paleopole for the Deer Lake Group, its position plots
at 8.4◦ N, 122.7◦ E, A95 = 7.2◦ , 13.8◦ S of the uncorrected paleopole.
An inclination correction was also performed using the EI tech-
nique of Tauxe & Kent (2004), which is based on the TK03.GAD
model of the geomagnetic field using the software find EI (pmag-
1.9.2 software package). This technique requires at least 100 sites to
represent the distribution of directions drawn from plausible models
of the geomagnetic field (Tauxe & Kent 2004). Because only 29 site
mean directions were available, we used specimen directions ob-
tained in this study together with the site mean directions reported
by Irving & Strong (1984), which is justified because in sediments
each specimen is a unique estimate of the geomagnetic field, giving
58 sample directions. The correction yields a new inclination of
41.1◦ (33◦ and 52◦ , low and high 95 per cent confidence interval
inclinations), 9.8◦ smaller than the anisotropy-based correction, but
with a large confidence interval that includes the previous result.

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Rock magnetism and inclination shallowing 283
5 DISCUSSION
5.1 Magnetic Mineralogy
Results of the thermal demagnetization of three orthogonal IRMs
(Lowrie 1990) suggest that haematite, magnetite and maghemite
are present in the samples. The sharp drop observed at ∼680 ◦ C is
characteristic of haematite, however, this behaviour is not observed
in the majority of our samples. All samples, however, show a loss
of intensity, even if slight, at ∼580 ◦ C, indicative of magnetite.
The presence of maghemite is indicated by a slight loss of intensity
between 350 and 450 ◦ C (Dunlop & Özdemir 1997; McElhinny
& McFadden 1999) and also so by the reapplication of an IRM at
the end of the heating cycle, which shows an intensity much lower
than before heating, assuming that the maghemite has inverted to
haematite with heating. When the bulk susceptibility is plotted ver-
sus temperature (Fig. 10), a sudden increase is observed for cer-
tain samples starting around 450 ◦ C, indicating that mineralogical
changes are occurring upon heating. The increased susceptibility,
coupled with the reduced IRM capacity suggests transformation to
a phase with high IRM/χ (e.g. haematite) to one with very low
IRM/χ (e.g. magnetite).
Modelling of IRM acquisition curves (Kruiver et al. 2001)
shows coercivity peaks that correspond to the coercivities of mag-
netite/maghemite (50–70 mT) and haematite (500 mT), but also
higher coercivity peaks (2000 mT), which we interpret to be goethite
(Peters & Dekkers 2003) (Fig. 3).
MPMS low-temperature measurements confirm the results of the
IRM modelling. The loss of intensity measured on heating between
284 D. Bilardello and K. P. Kodama

Figure 9. Magnetic fabric in stratigraphic coordinates measured with AAR. (a) original data; (b) bootstrap data; (c) Flinn diagram (Flinn 1962) showing a
triaxial to oblate fabric. AAR magnetic fabric in geographic coordinates, (d) original data; (e) bootstrap data; (f) Histograms of the anisotropy eigevalues. Plots
were generated using pmag-1.9.2 (Tauxe 2006).

Figure 10. Bulk susceptibility as a function of temperature. Measurements where only possible for five sites for which we had spare samples. A sudden
increase of susceptibily at about 450 ◦ C was observed in three samples out of the five and is interpreted as an inversion of maghemite to haematite during
heating.

20 and 50 K, although not diagnostic, could be attributed to goethite,
as supported by the IRM acquisition modelling. Pyrrhotite also has a
low-temperature transition at 34 K, however we believe the presence
of sulphides to be unlikely in such highly oxidized rocks. The sharp
drop at 119 K is consistent with the Verwey transition (Dunlop and
Özdemir 1997) that occurs in magnetite at these temperatures. The
small fraction of remanence lost on cooling through the transition is
common for oxidized magnetite (Dunlop and Özdemir 1997). There
is no indication of the Morin transition, diagnostic of haematite,
around 250 K. For pigmentary nanophase haematite, the Morin
transition is reduced and shifted towards temperatures as low as
5 K, until it is completely suppressed in particles ≤1 μm in size
(Bando et al. 1965).
The FORC diagram, acquired in a peak field of 1.2 T, does
not show the high-coercivity phases, but rather only one low-
coercivity group below 100 mT. This is probably because the
higher magnetization of magnetite completely covers the signal of
haematite.


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 Rock magnetism and inclination shallowing 285

5.2 Paleomagnetism
The characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM) is typically re-
vealed around 300 ◦ C and is completely unblocked by 600–625 ◦ C.
Beyond these temperatures, no stable component of the remanence
persists and it is not possible to isolate a direction.
AF demagnetization up to 50–60 mT isolated the same compo-
nents of magnetization as the thermal demagnetization, indicating
that the ChRM-carriers must be magnetic phases with low coerciv-
ities. Typically, these coercivities would be thermally demagnetized
by 580 ◦ C: magnetite has a Curie temperatures of 580 ◦ C, whereas
maghemite shows a loss of intensity in the 350–450 ◦ C range that
accompanies its inversion to haematite (Dunlop & Özdemir 1997;
McElhinny & McFadden 1999). Demagnetization of 1.2 T IRMs,
however, clearly reveals that haematite is present in the rocks, but
its natural remanence is for the most part not stable as shown in
the vector endpoint diagrams (Fig. 6). We therefore interpret the
ChRM to be carried by magnetite and/or maghemite. The ChRM
is only fully unblocked at temperatures of 600–625 ◦ C. Thermally
stable maghemite could, in theory, carry remanence up to its Curie
point ∼645 ◦ C (Dunlop & Özdemir 1997), alternatively, some finer
grained haematite could also be contributing to the remanence.
The magnetization of the Deer Lake Group thus appears to be a
pre-folding magnetization that has two antipodal, normal (north and
negative) and reverse (south and positive), directions. In these red
beds most of the ChRM is not carried by haematite of either detrital
or chemical origin, but by magnetite/maghemite, with fine grained
haematite only partly contributing to the natural remanence.
5.3 Magnetic fabrics
The fabric of magnetite/maghemite measured by AAR is sub-
parallel to bedding and would indicate a primary depositional fab-
ric. The fabric has its minimum axes steeply plunging to the NW.
The maximum axes are clustered around the horizontal along a
NNE–SSW lineation, whereas the intermediate axes show a clus-
tering that gently plunges to the ESE. The magnetic lineation is
sub-parallel to the regional scale fold axes, suggesting that the fab-
ric could have been affected by strain. However, the beds that we
have sampled do not follow the trend of those structures, but dip
predominantly to the NE and would not therefore record the same
strain event.
Excluding the tectonic fabric hypothesis, a depositional fabric
explanation remains a plausible interpretation for the formation of
the pronounced magnetic lineation. The minimum axes of the fab-
ric, however, are very steep with the confidence ellipse including the
pole to bedding and likewise, the maximum and intermediate axes
are clustered on the horizontal, which means that the imbrication
of the fabric is not statistically significant. This could be the result
of burial compaction leading to a bedding parallel fabric. We inter-
pret the fabric as a depositional fabric, with good clustering of the
principal axes in stratigraphic coordinates, that has been affected by
post-depositional compaction.
5.4 Inclination shallowing
Results of the inclination correction on the Deer Lake paleopole
position are consistent with other inclination corrections performed
so far on the Maringouin and Shepody formations of the Maritime
Provinces of Canada (Bilardello 2008; Bilardello & Kodama 2010).
The 17.2◦ of correction for the Deer Lake Group is larger in magni-
tude than the ∼10◦ of correction for the Shepody and Maringouin
Figure 11. Uncorrected and corrected paleopoles from the Maritime
Provinces of Canada. Large open (filled) circle, uncorrected (corrected)
Deer Lake (UC and C) Group (this study); small filled circle, Deer Lake
Group (DL) (Irving & Strong 1984); Open (filled) diamond, uncorrected
(corrected) Shepody Fm. (Shep UC and C) (Bilardello 2008; Bilardello &
Kodama 2010); Open (filled) triangle, uncorrected (corrected) Maringouin
Fm. Paleopoles (Mar UC and C); Grey shaded line is the fitted APW
path for Laurentia from Torsvik et al. (1996) rotated into North Ameri-
can coordinates.
Formations. Because the amount of inclination shallowing is depen-
dent on the magnetic field inclination at deposition, which is in turn
a function of latitude, it is not surprising that the Deer Lake Group,
deposited at higher latitudes with steeper initial inclinations, has
suffered from more inclination shallowing. Our results confirm the
need to move the Lower Carboniferous portion of North American’s
APWP southward (Fig. 11) and strongly suggest a revision of the
red bed-derived Paleozoic and Mesozoic portion of the APWP.
The southward translation of this portion of the APWP required
by the corrections is ∼12◦ for the Middle Mississippian and ∼6◦
for the Upper Mississippian–Lower Pennsylvanian. As discussed in
Bilardello (2008) and Bilardello & Kodama (2010), this magnitude
translation would place Newfoundland in an arid climate zone dur-
ing the Middle Mississippian, consistent with the evaporitic deposits
present in the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick Carboniferous rocks
(Geldsetzer et al. 1980). Newfoundland would then move progres-
sively northwards towards more humid conditions in the Middle to
Upper Pennsylvanian, as indicated by the thick coal deposits that
characterize the Cumberland and Pictou groups (Hacquebard 1970;
Hacquebard & Donaldson 1969).
One other important effect of the southward translation of North
America (see Bilardello & Kodama 2010) is to increase the overlap
between North America and Gondwana in the early Pangea assem-
blages (Van der Voo 1993). Our results therefore favour a Pangea B
assemblage (Muttoni et al. 2003, 2009), in which North America is
positioned to the west of Gondwana, thus eliminating the overlap.
In Bilardello & Kodama (2010), however, we argue that to fully
evaluate the effects of the correction it is necessary to consider
the placement of Gondwana for that time period. This is because


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286 D. Bilardello and K. P. Kodama

the Carboniferous Gondwana paleopoles are derived primarily from
sedimentary rocks (Torsvik & Van der Voo 2002), which are likely
to have been affected by inclination shallowing. If this were the
case an inclination correction would move Gondwana further south,
possibly eliminating the overlap.
5.5 Comparison with other inclination correction
techniques
King (1955) suggested a relationship between the measured (re-
manent) inclination and field inclination to explain inclination shal-
lowing observed during redeposition experiments. This relationship
follows the equation:
tan(lm ) = f tan(l0 ),
where I m is the measured, or remanent inclination; I 0 is the field
inclination and f is the shallowing factor that has been observed to
lie between 0.4 and 0.55 from experimental data (King 1955; Tauxe
& Kent 1984).
We have collected inclination shallowing data for both magnetite
and haematite from various sources and compiled it with our data
from the Maritime Provinces of Canada (Table 2). All the results for
magnetite are from anisotropy-based inclination shallowing correc-
tions, enabling direct calculation of the f factors, which range from
0.54 (Deer Lake Group) to 0.79 (Nacimiento Fm).
For haematite, Tauxe (2005) and Kent & Tauxe (2005) have stud-
ied Oligo-Miocene and mid Miocene haematite-bearing red sedi-
mentary rocks from Asia and Pakistan, and Late Triassic red beds
from around the North Atlantic Ocean, respectively and have applied
an inclination shallowing correction using a statistical geomagnetic
field model (TK03.GAD), which relies on the elongation distribu-
tion of paleomagnetic directions caused by secular variation (Tauxe
& Kent 2004). Their technique yielded f factors from both studies
between 0.4 and 0.77. Our results from haematite-bearing rocks of
the Maritime Provinces of Canada imply f factors that range from
0.64 to 0.83. The result of Tan et al. (2003) from Chinese Cretaceous
red beds was also included.
We have deliberately left out values obtained from redeposition
experiments because when the redeposited sediments are measured
in the zero field of the magnetometer the remanent inclination may
be affected by grains physically reorienting in the high water content
sediments and therefore the measurement would not represent a true
DRM (Tauxe & Kent 1984; Carter-Stiglitz et al. 2006). Likewise,
results of Tan et al. (2007) from the Newark Basin red beds have not
been included because Kent & Tauxe (2005) already include results
from the same Newark Basin Formations in their study.
Even higher inclination errors have been observed for Neogene
(2) red sediments from the Vallès-Penedès basin (Garcés et al. 1996).
Site mean inclinations of less than 20◦ are reported for three out
of five finely laminated red bed sites, whereas they report a gamut
of inclinations ranging between 32◦ and 56◦ from six more sites
collected from finely laminated, burrowed, edafized and massive
facies. The expected geomagnetic field inclination is 60◦ . Garcés
et al. (1996) never report statistics at the Formation level, however,
calculation of a Formation mean (this study) from the 11 reported
site means yielded D = 0.6◦ , I = 34.7◦ and α 95 = 10.2◦ .
Magnetite-bearing rocks display a range of f values between
0.54 and 0.79 with a mean value of 0.65 and a standard deviation
of 0.08 (N = 9). Haematite-bearing rocks have values between 0.4
and 0.83 with a mean of 0.59 and a standard deviation of 0.12
(N = 15). These values correspond to greatly varying amounts of
inclination shallowing for both magnetite- and haematite-bearing
rocks (Fig. 12). It is very tempting to take the mean values and
their standard errors (0.026 for magnetite and 0.031 for haematite)
to perform simplified inclination corrections of formations that are
suspected to have suffered from inclination shallowing. However,

Table 2. Measured inclinations (I m ), corrected inclinations (I c ) and derived f factors for inclination
corrected magnetite- and haematite-bearing sedimentary rocks.
Magnetite and haematite f factors
Formation/group Magnetic carrier Im Ic f Reference
Glenshaw Fm. Magnetite 23.4 33.7 0.65 Kodama (2009)
Perforada Fm. Magnetite 35.6 50.1 0.60 Vaugn et al. (2005)
Nanaimo Group Magnetite 50.9 60.5 0.70 Kim & Kodama (2004)
Valle Group Magnetite 19.1 26.6 0.69 Li et al. (2004)
Ladd Fm. Magnetite 46 58 0.65 Tan & Kodama (1998)
Point Loma Fm. Magnetite 39.5 56 0.56 Tan & Kodama (1998)
Pigeon Point Fm. Magnetite 41.6 51.5 0.71 Kodama & Davi (1995)
Deer Lake Group Magnetite 33.7 50.9 0.54 This study
Nacimiento Fm. Magnetite 51.3 57.7 0.79 Kodama (1997)
Kapusaliang Fm. Haematite 29 52.5 0.43 Tan et al. (2003)
Shepody Fm. Haematite 20.4 30.1 0.64 Bilardello & Kodama (2010)
Maringouin Fm. Haematite 24.9 29.1 0.83 Bilardello & Kodama (2010)
Dan River Haematite 5.9 10 0.59 Kent & Tauxe (2005)
Newark basin: Princeton Haematite 5.2 9 0.57 Kent & Tauxe (2005)
Newark basin: Nursery Haematite 8.8 21 0.40 Kent & Tauxe (2005)
Newark basin: Titusville Haematite 13 20 0.63 Kent & Tauxe (2005)
Newark basin: Rutgers Haematite 14.2 21 0.66 Kent & Tauxe (2005)
Newark basin: Somerset Haematite 15.7 24 0.63 Kent & Tauxe (2005)
Newark basin: Weston Haematite 17.5 33 0.49 Kent & Tauxe (2005)
Newark basin: Martinsville Haematite 18.2 34 0.49 Kent & Tauxe (2005)
St. Audrie’s Bay Haematite 33.4 44 0.68 Kent & Tauxe (2005)
Jameson Land Haematite 45.1 60 0.58 Kent & Tauxe (2005)
Subei area Haematite 43.7 63 0.49 Tauxe (2005)
Potwar Plateau Haematite 33.7 41 0.77 Tauxe (2005)


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 Rock magnetism and inclination shallowing 287

Figure 12. Plot of the remanent (measured) inclinations (I m ) as a function of the field (corrected) inclinations (I 0 ). (a) Magnetite-bearing sedimentary rocks,
(b) is for haematite-bearing sedimentary rocks. The solid lines are the lines of perfect correlation between I m and I 0 (f = 1), the dashed lines comprise the
smallest and largest f factors measured, thus defining the ranges of maximum and minimum inclination shallowing observed. The dotted lines have been plotted
using the mean f factors. (a) The solid circle is from this study; the open circles are from other magnetic anisotropy-based studies (see Table 2). (b) The solid
circles are from our data (Bilardello 2008; Bilardello & Kodama 2010); the open circle in from the anisotropy-based correction of the Kapusaliang Fm.; open
triangles and diamonds are from the TK30.GAD corrections of Kent and Tauxe (2005) and Tauxe (2005) , respectively (see Table 2).

the f factor, from the inclination correction formula, incorporates
measurements of particle anisotropy and the magnetic fabric, which
make this parameter non-unique. Although particle anisotropy
may not vary substantially for haematite because it is not depen-
dent on crystal shape (Dunlop & Özdemir 1997; Bilardello 2008;
Bilardello & Kodama 2009), it is for magnetite (Dunlop & Özdemir
1997). Likewise the magnetic fabric of the rocks is dependent on
the degree of alignment of the particles, which is expected to vary
with magnetic mineralogy and process (Jackson 1991). The range
of measured f factors is therefore more significant than the mean
value, when evaluating inclination errors.
The maximum inclination error that can be expected from the
range of compiled f factors and the tan–tan relation of King (1955)
is of 17.4◦ for a magnetite-bearing rock with an original inclination
of 55◦ , using the smallest observed f factor of 0.54 (Fig. 12), and
of 25.3◦ for a haematite-bearing rock with an original inclination of
60◦ , using the smallest observed f factor of 0.4 (Fig. 12).
Inclination shallowing results may also be evaluated in terms
of the dipole equation, tan I = 2tan λ, where λ is the latitude.
When evaluating I m versus the latitude calculated from the corrected
inclinations, λ , the dipole relationship becomes
tan(Im ) =  tan(λ ),
where  is a proportionality constant, the ‘paleolatitude correction’
constant. Because the field inclination versus remanent inclination
equation and the dipole equation have the same tan–tan form and are
closely related, it is possible to calculate a corrected latitudinal range
using  = 2f for sedimentary rocks whose measured remanent
inclinations are suspected to be shallow.
To test these relationships, we have applied simplified inclination
corrections to our calculated mean (D = 0.6◦ , I = 34.7◦ , α 95 =
10.2◦ , N = 11) of the Vallès-Penedès basin red beds from the data
of Garcés et al. (1996) (expected field inclination = 60◦ ).
When we apply a correction using the observed haematite shal-
lowing factor end members of 0.4 and 0.83, the corrected inclina-
tions are 60◦ and 39.8◦ . A correction applied using the mean f factor
of 0.59 yields an inclination 49.6◦ . This simple test indicates that
for these red beds the smallest of the observed f factors restores
the inclination to that of the ambient geomagnetic field whereas the
mean or largest f factors observed would underestimate the correc-
tion by ∼10◦ and ∼20◦ , respectively. Nevertheless, this test shows
what ranges of inclination corrections may be expected for red beds
that are suspected to be shallow.
6 C O N C LU S I O N S
The inclination shallowing correction performed on the magnetite-
bearing Deer Lake Group rocks using the measured AAR fabric
and the measured particle anisotropy of the ChRM- carrying grains
indicates 17.2◦ of shallowing. This amount of inclination shallow-
ing corresponds to a 13.8◦ increase in colatitude for the corrected
paleopole, a larger value than what has been obtained from other
corrected red bed palepoles from the Maritime Provinces of Canada,
but consistent with the tan–tan variation of measured, shallowed in-
clination as a function of field inclination. Together with the other
inclination shallowing corrections that have been applied to this
portion of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic APWP for North America,
these results strongly suggest a revision of sedimentary rock, and
(3)
in particular red bed- derived, APWPs. The corrected paleolatitude
puts Newfoundland in an arid climate zone for the Lower Carbonif-
erous, in agreement with lithologic indicators. The corrected paleo-
geography increases the overlap between North and South America
in a Pangea A configuration, making a Pangea B reconstruction
necessary for this time period.
However, to fully evaluate the effects of the correction it is nec-
essary to consider the positioning of Gondwana.
The distribution of the corrected paleomagnetic directions pro-
vides a means of estimating the a factor used for the anisotropy
correction, and results suggest that the corrected inclinations corre-
spond to a geologically reasonable distribution of directions.
A comparison of the proportionality constant between the tan-
gent of the remanent inclinations and the tangent of the field


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288 D. Bilardello and K. P. Kodama
inclinations, the flattening factor f , derived from our anisotropy-
based inclination corrections and f factors resulting from other
studies show strong agreement. A compilation of f factors from in-
clination corrections performed on both magnetite- and haematite-
bearing rock formations allowed to determine the range of f factors
that may be expected, allowing determination of the possible ranges
of inclination shallowing.
The Neogene Vallès-Penedès basin red beds have been corrected
to test the range of derived f factors. The smallest of the f fac-
tors perfectly restores the inclination to that of the ambient field,
whereas the mean and largest f factors considerably undercorrect
the inclination. This simple test indicates what ranges of inclination
corrections may be expected for sedimentary rocks suspected to be
shallow.
AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S
The research was supported by National Science Foundation grant
EAR-540204 to K.P. Kodama. The authors thank Dennis V. Kent
for initial comments on the manuscript, Amy P. Chen for the FORC
diagram hysteresis measurements and Michael Winklhofer for his
expertise on FORC data and discussion. Lisa Tauxe and Michael J.
Jackson substantially improved the manuscript with their thoughtful
comments and reviews.
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